


The Secrets We Share

by lostrocket



Category: Gone With the Wind - Margaret Mitchell
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-15
Updated: 2017-02-15
Packaged: 2018-09-24 14:34:36
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 10,887
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9763340
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lostrocket/pseuds/lostrocket
Summary: Written for a smuttish challenge, with the premise that Rhett Butler has a "secret stash" of period pornography.





	1. Chapter 1

Rhett was depraved. Ashley had been right! He was coarse - worse than coarse - there were no words low enough to describe her husband.

Scarlett certainly shouldn't be surprised. He wasn't a gentleman, he even said as much himself. And she knew he had consorted with creatures like Belle Watling. She had tried to forget those sordid details, for they had belonged to a time before their marriage, and she did not like to dwell on the past. Only it wasn't the past anymore, was it? And that was her doing. She did not doubt that he had been back at the Watling woman's house this past week. When she went out, women pointed at her and talked behind their hands, but she didn't need the gossips to educate her. Rhett hadn't been home for supper even once. They had crossed paths only twice, once on Tuesday and again on Wednesday. Both days, she had come across him in the hall before breakfast. She hadn't known what to say. She was still, uncomprehendingly, sad. She had missed him, not having seen him since her ill-considered pronouncement. She had hardly slept, alone in their - now just _her_ \- bed, missing him.

On Tuesday, he had bowed in that abrupt, mocking way he used for people he scorned, and his tone was cool, so she had held her chin high and returned his greeting with an equal lack of affect.

On Wednesday, Rhett had been just inside the door, in the same clothes he had sported the previous morning. After another unemotional exchange, Scarlett had locked herself in her study and sobbed. She didn't understand it! Why did she care if he sought Belle Watling's company? It should have suited her just fine. She wanted him out of her bed. She didn't want any more babies. She would keep herself chaste, for Ashley, just as Ashley did for her. Of course Melanie _couldn't_ have another baby, and she still hadn't figured out a way to actually tell Ashley of her action, but she had determined to continue on her course.

Wade and Ella didn’t understand why their Uncle Rhett was gone, and they had grown increasingly fractious during his absence. Scarlett now had Mammy bring the baby to her bedroom when she was hungry, so she wouldn’t have to deal with her older children’s unanswerable questions. Somehow, that change in routine had led to... _this._

Bonnie had been fed, and fallen asleep in Scarlett’s arms. Scarlett was enjoying one of the few moments of motherhood she found to be enjoyable at all. A soft, sleeping baby, making no demands on her other than a comfortable embrace. She could study the baby’s face at leisure, noting the thick black lashes that matched the surprisingly thick and curly hair on her head; and the chin that already showed signs of stubbornness and a resemblance to her grandfather O’Hara. She lifted each tiny finger over the tip of her own, feeling the pointy crescents of the baby’s nails poking her. She smoothed Bonnie’s white dress over her full tummy, and arranged the flow of the skirt over her lap. Her daughter _was_ beautiful. She was a much prettier baby than Ella had been. Ella had been an unfortunate miniature of her father. Bonnie, she felt proudly, looked almost exactly like herself. She could hardly see Rhett in the baby at all. In current circumstances, that was a very pleasing realization.

Content with the baby in her arms and not wanting to wake her up, Scarlett rocked her quietly until Mammy had come to check on them. Only then had she relinquished the infant, allowing Mammy to take Bonnie back to the nursery. Scarlett had taken a moment to freshen up before leaving her bedroom. She hadn’t taken more than a step when she heard the voices of Wade, Ella, and Prissy - and the sounds of footsteps on the stairs! They must have been playing in the yard and were returning for their own afternoon naps. Flustered and thinking only to avoid the children, Scarlett ducked behind the nearest door.

With her ear pressed to the dark wood, Scarlett waited for the sound of voices in the hallway to fade. She had just been ready to make her escape, returning to the store to work the afternoon, when she realized she had entered Rhett’s new bedroom.

Scarlett hadn’t been in the room he had claimed since he had made it his own. His belongings had simply disappeared from their old room during her absence one day, and she told herself she didn’t care that he had committed to her dictated course of action without complaint. _The world is full of beds_ \- she pressed her palms to her ears as if she could stifle the memory of those stinging words.

She was in Rhett’s room, and Rhett could reasonably be trusted not to be returning to it any time soon. Of course, he would be perverse enough to suddenly decide to be home during the day - but her curiosity was stronger than any fear of discovery. She could come up with some excuse, some reason to be in this room if necessary - she had thought to buy new curtains, she hadn’t realized it was the room he had chosen (because how could she have realized, as he didn’t appear to have spent any nights in it yet? Quickly, she thrust that bitter thought aside). But she was in Rhett’s room - and he was gone—

Swiftly, she reached behind her to turn the key in the lock. After a moment in which she tried to calm her racing heartbeat, she began to slowly circumnavigate the large chamber. It had been decorated as lavishly as the rest of the house, designed to impress guests with imposing, highly varnished black-walnut furnishings that towered over her head. The four posters of the bed were round and thick and heavily carved, reaching powerful fists up toward the high ceiling. A fierce lion’s face leered down at her from the top of the immense wardrobe. Her slippers sunk soundlessly into the thick red carpet. The window on the far wall was drawn with heavy curtains, and the room was dim. One of her prized, custom steel engravings hung on the wall next to the door. The bed was to her left; on the long wall to her right, opposite the foot of the bed, was a dressing table towered over by a pier glass in a thick, gilded frame.

Scarlett circled the room until she reached the window. She ran one hand down the plush hangings, resisting the urge to draw them open for more light. She went to the wardrobe in the corner and swung the doors open, soundless on their well-oiled hinges. Rhett’s shirts filled the shelves, pillowy white. She pressed the top of one stack with an open hand, and the ruffled front tickled her palm. She ran her fingers down the sleeves of his jackets, rubbed fine velvet and intricately embroidered silks between her fingertips. He had always had the most elegant clothing she had ever seen on a man, sometimes so delicate and fine it would have been effeminate on anyone with less overwhelmingly physical power. She shivered.

Though she had locked the door herself and the house was quiet and still in the mid-afternoon lull, Scarlett looked around the room quickly to reassure herself of her solitude before stepping closer to the wardrobe. She leaned in and pressed her nose to a black broadcloth coat before breathing in deeply. The coat - the whole closet already smelled like Rhett, of tobacco, brandy, and horses. She breathed in again, letting a feeling of peace wash over her. Like a wave, it crested over her head, and as it broke, she felt her cheeks go hot. _What a ninny I am,_ she thought, stepping back and closing the wardrobe doors.

Scarlett trailed her hand down the soft bed covers, and paused to plump up the pillows. In idle curiosity, she opened the drawers of a small table set near to the bed.

Rhett was depraved.

There was no other explanation for - for _this_.

The doorknob jiggled. Scarlett gasped, then tried to stifle it with her hand across her mouth. _Oh damn._

There was a knock. The knob moved again.

Scarlett looked down at her hands - at her skirts - at the red carpet around her. There were postcards, small pamphlets, photographs. She had lost track of time. Quickly, she tried to gather up the documents - oh, God, to be caught in his room would have been bad enough, but if anyone knew - if _Rhett_ knew - what she had found! Her hands shook and the stack of postcards scattered. _Oh, damn!_

Where - how - _why_ did Rhett have these...things? Pictures of women - naked women. With their dresses down, or their skirts up, or - or no clothing at all.

Those won’t even the worst. There were drawings and photographs of women together; women with men; with their hands and - and mouths on each other. In - places even Rhett hadn’t touched her. Her throat felt thick. She knew her face was red. Even if she managed to shove these away - they were out of order, he would know - it was taking her too long to open the door, it was becoming impossible to explain away her presence in this room.

She was clumsy, flustered. Rhett was depraved - perhaps she was, too, for she felt—

The door shook. Oh God, it must be Rhett. Was he going to break it down? How would they explain that to the servants? The servants! They talked - she knew they talked, amongst themselves, and to other servants - she couldn’t have it getting around Atlanta that Rhett had bashed his bedroom door down - _that he had a separate bedroom._ Scarlett sprang to her feet, gathered up the postcards and prints and shoved them in the small drawer and tried to shut it. Papers caught in the drawer and it jammed, and she hurriedly tugged them and rearranged them and the door shook _again_. Flustered, she shoved at the drawer, closing it now almost all the way - something still stuck up out of it, but she was out of time. Hopefully he wouldn’t notice - it was a smaller risk than if Rhett actually broke down the door.

_No lock would keep me out._

Oh, God.

Scarlett pressed the backs of her hands to her cheeks, trying in vain to cool them and soften the hard flush of red she could see even in the distant pier glass. She swallowed hard, hoping to clear the lump from her throat. She tossed her head, practicing nonchalance, and then unlocked the door. It swung inward. Rhett stood on the other side.


	2. Chapter 2

Rhett smelled of spirits and tobacco, but his clothes were neat and his black eyes were not bloodshot. He was steady on his feet, but then, Scarlett had never known him to show any of the usual signs of drink. If anything, alcohol seemed to sharpen his focus, to drill him down to some concentrated essence that could pierce her soul.

Under his sardonic gaze, the fear that her embarrassed flush would give her away proved fruitless as mortification drained her white. She tried to toss her head again, repeating the move for Rhett’s benefit, but her movements were stiff.

“Oh, Rhett,” she said, awkwardly from a dry mouth. “I was just - the door must have—” The practiced excuses died on her tongue, wilting under his penetrating stare. “I didn’t…” she tried and failed again.

Rhett leaned against the doorframe, his arms crossed loosely over his broad chest. More than ever, the sense of his great physical power struck her like a blow. He was so big. Propped against just one side of the door, the width of his shoulders blocked her escape.

“Pray continue, Mrs. Butler,” he said in an exaggerated drawl, drawing out each syllable in his deep voice. Her stomach turned over, and instead of settling, fluttered anxiously.

“Oh.” What was the plan? “I - I decided to order new curtains. I was just - looking—” She felt the hot rush of blood in her cheeks again. _Looking,_ indeed.

Rhett entered the room, his proximity forcing her to take several steps backwards so he wouldn’t run her down. He shut the door behind him, and she distinctly heard the click of the key in the latch.

“Rhett, I—”

“You were looking at the curtains. Of course, my dear. Shall we?” Rhett extended his arm to her and she took it, with reflexive good manners. A bit dazed, she let Rhett lead her to the window. He moved his head back, taking in the curtains from rod to hem. “I confess, I’ve never been terribly fond of these. Were you thinking, perhaps - something in green?” Rhett leered at her and she stepped back, jerking her arm from his.

“You’re a cad, Rhett Butler.”

Rhett let his hand, which had risen to take the edge of the curtain between his thumb and forefinger, drop back to his side. He didn’t answer, and the silence bubbled in her throat until it burst.

“I don’t care what you do in - with,” she caught herself, making the correction in a whisper, and trying again. “ _With_ this room. Good day.”

Scarlett turned to go, but the iron force of Rhett’s voice arrested her.

“What were you really doing in here, Scarlett? Don’t give me that lame excuse about the curtains again. It’s transparently bad, my dear. The door was locked - no, I won’t believe that was an accident, so don’t try that line, either.”

Scarlett stood stock still at the foot of the massive bed. Rhett began to circle the room, peering first behind the curtains formerly in question, then opening and closing the dresser, opening the vanity drawers, even lifting the hem of the bed covers. He passed so closely to her that her skirts rustled against his legs - he was moving up the other side of the bed now—

“I was curious!” Scarlett cried out, desperate to stop him before he noticed the evidence of her true activities. Rhett stopped, and turned to her, leaning to one side to see her around the bedpost. “I - since I - since you - since you took this room. I was just curious to see what you had...done with it.” She finished lamely. Rhett raised his eyebrows in disbelieving black crescents.

“Should I be worried that you’ve tainted the pitcher of water? A bit of poison - someone in that pack of jackals you call friends is sure to know all about ways to get rid of an inconvenient husband. Or lest I forget your country roots, perhaps you’ve come in to hide snakes in my bed.” Rhett tugged at the sheets and Scarlett’s temper flared.

“Like you’d notice if I did! You haven’t slept here a night since—” She broke off, realizing that statement could only lead to her own culpability.

“Since the day you informed me you’d had quite enough of children, _and me_ . Isn’t that right, my dear? I am so sorry, Scarlett. I assumed if you did not care for my presence in _your_ bed, you would care very little in _whose_ bed - or _beds_ \- I spent the night.”

Scarlett clenched her teeth to stop the tremble of her chin, and lifted her jaw as tears threatened the corners of her eyes. She had cried when he had left that day - but he didn’t know it, and he wouldn’t know it, and she certainly wouldn’t let him see her cry now. She, Scarlett, was the victim here. She reminded herself of what she had seen - what she had found in this room.

The flash of Rhett’s white teeth, smiling under his mustache, cut her heart. _The world is full of beds_.

Rhett was moving again, running his brown fingers along the edge of the bed as he drew closer to that small table. The bent corner of some card stuck up from the drawer, drawing her attention as obviously as a bright white flag of surrender being waved. He would notice - he couldn’t fail to notice—

She braced herself for the blow, the smooth insult, the false innocence. She watched, unable to move, as Rhett stopped in front of the table and flicked the paper corner. She drew in a breath and it caught, unable to be expelled as fear closed her throat. He would know - he would know she was as depraved as he was, for having even looked at it, that despicable collection - that disgusting, intriguing, degenerate, provocative collection.

Tension seemed to suffuse the room, making the air thick like a humid summer day. Rhett didn’t move, and didn’t say anything for so long that her chest began to ache, forcing her to draw in air so heavy it sunk to the bottom of her belly. Why didn’t he speak?

The pit of her stomach went cold when Rhett pulled open the drawer. She was almost surprised the hastily stowed prints didn’t explode upward when he did so, and she had to press a hand to her mouth to stifle an inappropriate giggle. Anxiety had turned her upside down. Rhett reached a hand down, fiddling out of sight with the contents of the drawer. Heat licked at her again as she remembered what she had seen - what he was looking at now.

Why - why did he possess such things?

Rhett’s hand withdrew, holding a small postcard. She craned her neck to see it, caught herself and turned her head away. She wouldn’t look - it wasn’t right - she shouldn’t have been looking at all.

There was a soft whispering sound and she turned her head back without thinking. Rhett had stepped forward and slid the card along the top of the bed towards her. He tapped it with one thick fingertip before standing straight and rocking back on his heels.

Against her own will, pulled by some irrefutable urge, Scarlett looked down at the card. It was, for what she had seen earlier, one of the less offensively vulgar images. A young woman, maybe even her own age. Indeterminately dark-haired in the way of a tintype, she was sitting in front of a vanity table, photographed in just her chemise. Her legs were open wide across the bench but, thankfully, in this image the woman was fully clothed. In so many of the others she had seen—

Scarlett reddened just remembering them. Hastily, realizing she had been looking too long, she lifted her eyes defiantly to Rhett. Too late, she became conscious that she should have reacted immediately, questioned him, rebuked him - done something to throw off his obvious suspicion. Far too late.

“Curious, my dear?” Rhett drawled, throwing her own words back at her.

“Wh-what is that?” Scarlett tried to snap, but her voice came out disgustingly soft and tentative.

“Don’t play the coquette with me, Scarlett. You should have learned by now that doesn’t work, even if you’ve apparently managed to learn nothing else.”

Scarlett held her tongue.

“Come, my pet, out with it. It’s obvious what you were up to in here. It looks like Sherman’s cannons bombarded my drawer.”

She couldn’t defend her own actions, so Scarlett moved instead to the attack.

“How dare you keep such - things - in my house! The children—”

“The children all have better manners than you, my pet, and don’t go snooping where they aren’t welcome. They are never out of the sight of Mammy or Prissy, not that you would realize as much for all that they are never _in_ your sight. But, Scarlett, I don’t wish to discuss the children. I’m discussing you.”

“It’s obscene. You’re - depraved.”

Unexpectedly, her words tipped some unknowable balance within Rhett and he turned from her in a terse movement. In a single long step he was back at the table and he yanked on the drawer - she heard wood crack - and dumped the contents on the bed. He casually tossed the empty drawer over his shoulder and then pushed his hands through the cards and prints, spreading them luridly over the quilt.

“Am I?” His teeth gleamed predatorily as he lounged around the bed to her. He stood close, his chest against her arm, and his breath warmed her neck. “What were you doing in here with the door locked, my dear?”

“I really was just looking around, Rhett,” she answered, her voice pleading. “I stepped in to - to avoid Prissy, before I realized it was your room. When I knew - I wanted to see - what you had done. Your things…” She couldn’t explain. Why had she been snooping? Some part of her was still distressed at the banishment she had initiated, but what could she have thought to find in his room that would have had any bearing on that situation?

Rhett ran his hand down her arm and she shivered. “But you found rather more than you bargained for, I think.”

Scarlett’s hard swallow, forced down around the lump in her throat, was loud to her ears. “Rhett…” she protested in a useless whisper.

“I told you it didn’t matter,” he murmured, his lips brushing her ear. “You are welcome to the sanctity of your vestal bed. The world is full of women - I have no need of even venturing out of this house to find them.” One arm made a vague gesture over the lewd spread of paper.

“How could you?” She choked out, surprised at her own words and the tears clogging her throat.

“You broke our bargain, Scarlett.” Suddenly Rhett stepped away and drove his hands, spread wide, through the cards, shoving most of them off the side of the bed, then turned back to loom over her, face to face. “You are such a child! What did you think I would do, my darling, when you tired of me? But then, I was a fool as well, for I never expected that myself. I expected - but never mind that.” _What?_ she wondered, her mind churning. _Rhett expected - but what is he talking about?_ “What an innocent you are. What a foolish - childish - innocent.”

“So tell me, my dear,” Rhett continued, stepping away from her again. He was moving so quickly, talking so fast, her mind was in a turmoil. She could hardly follow him from one moment to the next. “Innocent as you are, I’m sure you’ve had quite a shock today. But were you even a little bit intrigued?”

Rhett turned away and riffled through the cards that remained on the bed. He grabbed one and examined it, then tossed it over the edge. He selected another seemingly at random, and after a quick perusal he returned to her side. Scarlett remained frozen as he stepped behind her and wrapped his arms around her, forcing the card into her hand. She resisted as Rhett raised her arm to bring it up to the level of her eyes, but his strength overwhelmed her.

If it had been a kindness, before, to show her an image that was relatively innocent, the charitable impulse had been expended - although, she thought shamefully, she knew even this was not the worst of what she had seen. The small, photographic postcard depicted a woman, this time apparently older than herself, and fully clothed - but with her skirts tossed up above her waist, cascading over the arms of the chair in which she reclined. A man kneeled, fully clothed, before her - with his face - his face—

With the same shocked curiosity that had overwhelmed her moral center before, Scarlett did not look away immediately. When she did, Rhett’s presence surrounded her. She turned her head, and her cheek found the hard planes of his chest. She closed her eyes. Rhett didn’t speak, and in the darkness and silence, she realized she could hear his heart under her ear. It thudded loudly, in a rushing, erratic tempo. 

The touch of Rhett’s hand running up her neck startled her, and she jumped, colliding more firmly with his body. He cupped the back of her head and pulled it away from his chest, then bent until his lips brushed her ear.

“Were you even a little bit - curious?”


	3. Chapter 3

“Were you even a little bit - curious?”

Scarlett’s throat and mouth were dry, her pulse erratic, her hands clammy and limp. Curious? Of course not...no lady would be...it was wrong, all of it; the existence of these images, Rhett’s possession, her guilty examination. 

Rhett’s mustache brushed the sensitive shell of her ear when he asked the question. Were you even a little bit curious? His mouth molded briefly around the lip at the top of her ear, in a strange, open-mouthed kiss. She thought, unwillingly, of his mouth, of the way she felt when he kissed her sometimes. He hadn’t kissed her like that in so very long, not even in New Orleans; not the way he had that dark night outside Rough and Ready, or that day in Pittypat’s library - when his lips had moved slowly over hers, hot and urging, kissing her until nothing else existed for her beyond his lips, his embrace, his mouth on hers and his arms holding her close. He could make her weak, giddy and faint, as nothing - and certainly no one - else ever had.

Scarlett was not aware she had even turned her head until she realized she was looking down at that postcard again, at that crude, salacious image - the man’s head between the woman’s legs - but now she thought of Rhett. She would die, she would expire on the spot, if Ellen were alive she would be disowned, no lady should think such things! But she couldn’t stop the treacherous, concupiscent thoughts of Rhett’s mouth between her own legs. Her muscles clenched and she could feel the wetness that clustered like dew at the tops of her thighs.

“No,” she croaked in a hoarse lie. “No lady would be.”

“My dear,” Rhett murmured, his mouth finding her ear again, “I thought we established long ago that you are no lady.”

Indignation stirred weakly within her, but it was a poor impulse against the overwhelming tide of feeling that made her long to turn in Rhett’s arms and draw his mouth down to her own. It took all her mental faculties to resist the latter urge, and she had no strength left over to protest the slur on her character. She had looked - she had wondered - if she demurred, Rhett would know her for a liar. He always did.

Rhett’s shocking tongue flicked against her earlobe, tracing the diamond she wore, then followed the edge of her ear up and around, slipping under the rib at the top before his teeth gently bit down. Scarlett moaned, desire and surprise breaking the dam of her reticence, though she immediately raised the back of her hand to her mouth to smother the sound. She took the skin of her hand between her teeth. Rhett raised his hand and pressed it to hers, palm to palm, before easing it away from her mouth. He rubbed his thumb over the tiny imprints left by her teeth.

“And you know I have no use for ladies and their empty charms. I like a woman with real courage, a woman who isn’t afraid of invading armies or speaking her own mind. A woman who isn’t afraid of passion. If you want to be a lady, Scarlett, you can return to your chaste and empty bed.”

Rhett dropped her hand and his arms fell away. He stepped back and without his all-encompassing presence, she felt suddenly cold. She turned quickly, seeking his eyes. Forgotten, the obscene postcard was still clenched in her fist.

“You can have your bed and your dreams of Ashley Wilkes, my pet. It will work no hardship on me,” Rhett said, his black eyes glittering dangerously and strangely.

Scarlett wavered on the precipice of an unexpected second chance. She thought back over the past week, to that day when she had stood across the hall in their bedroom and and made it hers alone. She felt anew the mortification of his nonchalant accedence to her wishes, and the regret of having ever said anything. Her jaw pulsed as she clenched and unclenched her teeth.

“You’ve made your choice then, my dear,” Rhett said, with a dark edge to his voice that frightened her. “Get out.”

No, that’s not what she wanted - she hadn’t been happy this week, not at all. She missed Rhett, just as she had known she would, missed the long, amusing conversations in the dark and the comfort of his embrace after a nightmare. She had already had two, waking alone in the cold, empty bed. But she still didn’t want any more children!

“Get. Out,” Rhett ground out, with that edge of something sharp and harsh under his clipped words.

“I still don’t want any more children,” she blurted out, rooted to the spot.

Rhett’s eyes raked her from head to toe, and she shivered. “My pet, must I tell you again it is immaterial—”

“Oh! As if that has anything to do with it!”

“Pardon?”

“You say you don’t care how many children I have, as if caring whether they come has any bearing on their arrival! You know as well as I do that babies come whether you want them to or not - God’s nightgown, Wade and Ella both are proof enough of that!” Scarlett immediately slapped both her hands over her mouth, mortified that she had finally said as much out loud.

Rhett’s eyes flashed, and he curled his mouth in a smile that was anything but mirthful. “As I said, commend me to a woman who says what she is really thinking.”

“I shouldn’t have said that,” she muttered.

“No, but your secret is safe with me. Although you might want to disguise it a little better from the children in question.” Scarlett glared at him. Rhett grinned, expressing real amusement. Of course he would be entertained by her slip. “My dear, this has been an enlightening moment, but I believe we are still at an impasse. You have made your decision.” The light went from his eyes, and his voice turned to ice, freezing her spine as he spoke. “Now get out.”

“But, Rhett, I—” Scarlett fumbled, dropping her gaze. She realized she had crushed that card in her hand, and she opened her fingers, staring at it. Rhett plucked it from her grasp, and she blushed to have been caught.

“You are curious.” His fingers grabbed her chin sharply and she cried out, more at the unexpected shock than any pain. He forced her head around to look at him, and his eyes seemed to spear her through her soul. She licked her lips and forced herself to bear his gaze with as much equanimity as she could muster.

Rhett’s touch softened until he was caressing her chin and the line of her jaw. “Will you answer me one question, Scarlett? Honestly, without coquetry, lies, or any of your flirtatious artifice.” Scarlett nodded, the movement drawing the rough skin of his fingertips along her jawline. Rhett dropped his arm, and both his hands disappeared into the pockets of his coat. “When you came to me last week, you wanted separate beds. I did not misunderstand you. No, my dear, this is not the question. I am merely letting you know that I understood your aims, so that you can not attempt to sidestep my question by claiming a prior miscommunication. You did not - you don’t - want any more children, but you also did not want to ‘bear’ my - foolishness, isn’t it? You did not want to bear my foolishness any longer.” Rhett had paced away from her, but now he turned. “The question, my dear, is has that changed?”

“I don’t understand,” Scarlett said, and it was only half a lie.

Rhett smiled. “I think you do, but I can put it more plainly if you insist. Have you changed your mind about sharing your bed with me?”

Scarlett opened her mouth, then snapped it closed again, unable to find words.

“One question, Scarlett. Just this one question. Can you answer it?”

“Yes,” she mumbled, casting her eyes down.

Rhett was at her side almost instantaneously. “Is that your answer?” he murmured against her hair.

“Yes,” she repeated, her dry whisper barely audible.

The card she had crushed, which he had taken from her limp grasp, fluttered in front of her eyes. “Curious?” Rhett whispered, his breath stirring the soft hair behind her ear. She felt warmth against her waist as his other arm slid around her, hauling her back against him. Her bustle was crushed awkwardly between them before it slipped aside, letting her backside mold against his thighs. The many layers of skirt and petticoat were still thick between them, but she could feel the heat of his body from her hips to her shoulders. “Didn’t your darling friend Mamie Bart tell you, my dear? There are ways for a man and a woman to be together that do not carry the risk of a child. There are preventatives,” Rhett’s hand slid down her front and pressed between her legs, forcing the layers of her clothing against her. Scarlett trembled and bit her lip against another moan. “There are - different activities.”

Rhett slid his hand down her arm and pressed the card into her palm, then lifted her arm to hold the card out in front of them both, half an arm’s length away. “I can get us some things to try, Scarlett, if you wish to share my bed. But there are other things we can try right now.” The arm that was wound around her shifted, rubbing the hard heel of his hand over her lower belly. “If you’re curious.”

“Rhett,” she repeated, in the same dry whisper, at a complete loss for words. The mental onslaught of images was overwhelming, all the things she had seen that afternoon flickering behind her eyelids. She had no doubt that many of the things illustrated on those cards were the “different activities” he was referring to.

She felt the crisp edge of paper pressing into the swell of her breast, and she looked down. Rhett had tucked the postcard under the edge of her bodice. “In case we need it for reference,” Rhett muttered, before pressing his mouth hard to the corner of her jaw beneath her ear. He kissed her, open-mouth, trailing down her throat to the defined ridge of her collarbone. She was drawing a stuttering breath which erupted in a small shriek as Rhett abruptly pulled her off her feet and cradled her against his chest. He turned a small circle on the spot before crossing to the large, wingback chair set in the corner opposite the wardrobe. He dumped her carelessly on the seat, and she had to scramble to grip the armrests before the slick horsehair surface could drop her right off it at his feet. She protested with an incoherent sound of indignation as she struggled to regain her breath.

Rhett kneeled before her, and her efforts to breathe died in her dry throat. Despite their conversation, she couldn’t believe - he wouldn’t really—

His dark head bent over her feet and his fingers made surprisingly quick work of the small buttons on her taffeta boots. He slipped each one gently from her feet. His hands cupped her heels and slid up the backs of her calves, his rein-roughened palms scratching along the fine woven silk of her stockings until they slipped over her garters and onto her bare skin. His palms were warm and her legs were hot with rushing blood, but she shivered. 

Her skirt had ridden up along the backs of his arms, and as his hands met her thighs he released her abruptly and took the hem of her dress. With one hand, he tugged the fabric from under her bottom free; then both hands drew the skirt above her thighs and draped it across her waist, carefully hanging the trailing skirts over the side of the chair. Scarlett gripped the arms of the chair, not knowing what else she should do with her hands. 

With her skirt out of the way, her basic modesty was still protected by the loose drawers and long chemise she wore. Rhett pushed the chemise up to join her skirt, then deftly untied the string of her drawers. They slipped off her thighs, and he tugged at them until she lifted off the chair and allowed them to slip free. She squeezed her legs together as Rhett set the filmy cotton aside. Now she was exposed - she released the chair to tug her skirt back down, and Rhett caught her hands. One of his hands was almost large enough to contain both her fists, and he held her like that one-handed while he reached up with his other hand to draw the card from under her bodice. 

He waved it slowly in front of her face and she blushed and dropped her eyes. This avoidance tactic failed in her current predicament, as she found herself looking down at her own white thighs, indecently framed by the skirt rucked up to her waist. Oh, God, what had she agreed to?

Rhett pressed the card into her hand and she clutched it, crumpling it up again. She squeezed her eyes shut and pressed her head into the back of the chair. Rhett appeared to be satisfied that she had released her dress and made no verbal complaint. She felt his mouth on each of her knees in turn, kissing her with an open mouth that left a cooling wet spot on the silk of her stockings. He released her hands, and his palms smoothed up the outside of her thighs to her hips, then down to her knees. He moved his hands back up to the middle of her thighs and slipped his fingers underneath her, his thumbs digging into the soft flesh as he slowly eased her legs apart. Scarlett began to shiver uncontrollably. 

“Sweet,” Rhett whispered, as he kissed the untouched skin of her inner thighs, stirring a primitive memory within her. 

“Rhett,” she answered, and the card dropped from her hand as she brought it to rest, tentatively, against his soft black hair. She ran her fingers through it, relishing the feel of the short, silky strands that caressed her fingers and palm.

Rhett’s hands moved again, sliding back up her thighs until his thumbs pressed into the crease where her legs met her hips. He moved his hands, slowly but inexorably, over and around her legs, his thumbs tracing her skin until they met in the thicket of tangled black hair between her legs. Rhett had touched her there before, brief, exploratory caresses before he would enter her. The touches themselves were tantalizing hints of something more, brief glimpses of fire unfulfilled, before she turned her head and resigned herself to his pleasure. He hadn’t touched her at length, ever - not like this - his thumbs moving, together, down her very center, now sliding easily along her wet skin and opening her - oh, God, opening her to his eyes, not just his touch. At least the room was dim and poorly lit, but even as sensual flames licked at her belly she felt embarrassment threatening to overwhelm her again. Her fingers clenched in his hair, but he did not protest.

And then embarrassment was removed to distant memory as the tip of one thumb brushed something that made her shiver and arch into his hand, touched some place that sent sparks shooting along all her nerve endings until fire flared in every part of her. Scarlett gasped and twisted, trying to press closer to his touch. This - this was something more, this was the depths of something barely felt, the secret pleasure she had somehow sensed existed when his hand would brush her briefly. But she had never, never imagined anything like this.

“Rhett,” she said again, her voice breaking on a soft cry, no longer whispering but becoming strident with new, urgent need. His thumb moved in lazy circles against her and she panted, each movement shivering up her spine and curling her stockinged toes that rested against Rhett’s thighs. She squirmed and her hips rose off the chair, urging him on without words. With a reflex she was not even aware of, the hand in his hair tugged gently.

His thumb circled, moved down, slipped up - and then was gone, and she cried sharply into the emptiness. But then - then - Oh, God. The card. His soft hair tickled the inside of her thighs, his warm breath was cool over her wet, aching skin - and then his mouth was on her. She gave a quick, tense scream, quickly bit it off. The door was locked, the house had been quiet, but the servants could be anywhere. It was the middle of the afternoon - you ninny, some pragmatic part of her chastised. Like the middle of the afternoon is the worst of it!

It could only be Rhett’s tongue, that soft, fervent movement circling her and firing sensations even more ripe with crystalline pleasure that bubbled under her skin and pulsed through her blood. Her hand tugged at his head, instinctively urging him on and thankfully unaware of her own wanton actions. He flicked his tongue against her and then it dipped and pressed inside her in an obscene, arousing parody of the only sexual act she had heretofore been aware of. “Rhett,” she moaned again, all other words, even protest, gone from her mind. His tongue circled, pressed, licked; she gyrated, abandoned, in the chair. He pressed one finger into her, then two, and his fingers thrust, once. At the same time, he closed his lips firmly over the tender bud he had been lavishing with such intimacy - and she clenched around his hand as she shattered. 

Scarlett’s head fell back against the chair and her hands fisted where they lay, one clutching the arm of the chair - the other pulling, surely painfully, in his hair. Her toes curled and she dug them into the hard muscles of his thighs, using the leverage to lift her hips off the chair as waves of pleasure threatened to bow her in two.

She had barely started to relax again into the plush seat when Rhett’s hard arms pulled her off the chair and she landed, uncomfortably twisted in her skirts, on his lap. His mouth was hot and urgent over hers. She knew, in some dim corner of her awareness, that she must be tasting herself, but in the obscuring glow of such release as she had never even known existed, the knowledge failed to trouble her.

Rhett kissed her as he had the day he proposed, as the night at Rough and Ready; kissed her with sensuous urgency, his tongue claiming her and the pressure of his lips making her dizzy. Shyly, for she had never done more than accept his attentions, she touched her tongue to his, her first ever effort to return his kiss. Rhett groaned and his arms tightened around her, pulling her hard against his chest. With difficulty, she slid her arms free and twined them around his neck, clinging to his sturdy form. 

Gradually, Scarlett became aware of her precarious position in Rhett’s lap, and the hard evidence of his own unsought release that pressed against the curve of her rear. Oh, her stunned mind processed. Of course - they hadn’t - or Rhett hadn’t - it wasn’t what usually happened, in bed— 

Scarlett broke the kiss abruptly, pulling back to stare at Rhett. She was flushed with arousal, but also the embarrassment of burgeoning knowledge. Innocent of the consequences, she squirmed slightly in his lap.

“Scarlett,” Rhett said tautly, his lips turning white at the edges. “You need to - stop.”

Alarmed by his tone, Scarlett froze. Her blush crept up her forehead to her hairline as she said, in a breathless whisper, “But, Rhett - you—”

“No,” he said, his voice strained. “And unless you want to explore more of that artwork, I suggest you Stop. Moving.”

In an involuntary response to his words, Scarlett turned to look at the bed, where the prints and postcards that had caused and inspired this sudden reconciliation were still scattered. 

“What do you mean?” she wondered, out loud. Rhett chuckled, the sound harsh but with an undercurrent of real amusement. He lifted her, gently, from his lap, and balanced her with his hands on her hips until her wobbly legs grew steady.

“Why don’t you go and see?” he asked, raising his eyebrows at her in a distinct challenge.


	4. Chapter 4

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In which we may be slightly, or REALLY, out of character.

Scarlett drifted over to the bed, and stirred the sprawled materials with her hand. She hadn’t seen all of these during her illicit examination of the contents of the drawer. If she hadn’t already been flushed, she would have turned beet red, looking at these again - or for the first time - under Rhett’s gaze. Nude women - nude  _ men _ \- she hadn’t ever seen a man nude, before she married Rhett. She looked away from those cards quickly, feeling they were somehow even more indecent than the depictions of naked women. 

She had been idly browsing without taking much in for more than a minute when she felt Rhett come to stand behind her. He bent slightly, curving his body around hers, and his long arm reached easily for the scattered pictures. He sorted through them quickly, sending discarded images over the far side of the bed with a quick flick of his fingers. Then he grabbed a card, held it, and lifted it closer to them both.

Scarlett closed her eyes briefly, taking a moment to gather her courage, before looking down at the card he held aloft. A couple, a man and a woman both naked, on a bed overflowing with pillows and embroidered blankets. The man reclined, supported in apparent comfort. The woman—

Scarlett gasped. “It’s not decent!”

Rhett’s chuckle was warm against her ear. “Honey, none of these are  _ decent _ . That’s their entire purpose.” His hand tugged her skirts up until they were high enough for him to slip beneath them and caress her warm thigh. “What we just didn’t wasn’t  _ decent. _ ”

“You would remind me,” Scarlett retorted, breathlessly.

“And I will every chance I get,” Rhett promised in a low murmur. He didn’t remove his hand from her leg.

Scarlett took a stuttering breath and looked at the card again. The woman was kneeling over the man, her naked rump high in the air, and - it was hard to tell in the small format - perhaps his hand rested on her rear. But it was the woman’s head - her mouth - that caused Scarlett’s consternation. She - she was doing something with her mouth that Scarlett had no words to describe. She had the man’s - parts - clearly, in her mouth— 

“It’s not decent,” she repeated, unable to come to any other conclusions or find any other response.

“You don’t want any more children.”

Scarlett shook her head, and her hair tumbled over her shoulders. The pins which had been jostled as she tossed her head against the high chair back only minutes before had finally given up on their job of holding her piled hair in place. Rhett’s chin nestled under the thick black locks until he could kiss her cheek. “Then it would be risky to pursue - the usual activities,” he said, gently, and - surprisingly - without any note of mockery. “At least until I can procure certain items.” Scarlett bit her lip, her foggy mind beginning to clear enough to understand that there were resources Rhett had known about - and kept from her - but she shied away from that knowledge. She would think about that tomorrow - she could wait to wonder why he would have accepted her statement the week before without offering this alternative. The question would keep until tomorrow.

“As I told you earlier, Scarlett. There are - different activities. Things which do not carry any associated risk of pregnancy.” She shifted on her feet, uncomfortable with the blunt term. “We already engaged in one of those activities.”

“Oh,” she blurted.

“Yes,” Rhett chuckled, “oh, indeed. And, as you may have noticed, that particular - activity - was designed to pleasure you, but as you so indelicately tried to observe, it was less - eventful - for myself.”

“Oh,” Scarlett repeated, just a low murmur in her throat this time.

“I would find this very pleasurable, indeed,” Rhett said, his mouth moving again to her ear. His lips molded to its curves and his mustache tickled the now highly sensitized skin.

Scarlett tried to swallow but her mouth and throat were dry. She stared at the card Rhett still held. The woman’s eyes were closed, and her expression neutral. The man’s eyes were open, fixated on the head bent over him, his mouth stretched in an apparent grimace.

“He looks like he’s in pain,” she said.

“I promise you, honey, he’s not in pain.” Rhett’s fingers kneaded her thigh.

“You - you want this?”

“Scarlett - I—” Whatever explanation Rhett may have been attempting, he ended it abruptly. “Yes,” he confessed. “Very much.”

They were quiet a moment.

“You can’t get pregnant from this,” Rhett said, the proximity of his quiet voice in her ear startling her.

It was probably a sin. It was certainly unladylike. But what Rhett had just made her feel - she hadn’t even known such feelings as that existed. Would - this - feel the same for him? 

Scarlett turned in his arms and pressed her hands to his chest. She looked up at him, her eyes dark and serious.

“Rhett,” she began, and took a brief pause to collect her thoughts. “Will you come back to our room? Will you stop going out all night? I know you’ve been to - that creature’s place - and I can’t, I couldn’t bear it. I regretted what I said almost as soon as I had said it,” she finished, and lifted her chin, her jaw square and defiant as she stared at him, challenging him to return her honest confession with typical mockery.

Rhett let the postcard flutter to the floor and he cupped her cheek gently in his hand. His thumb followed the curve of her high cheekbone. “I have been at Belle’s this week. I’ve been losing money at her card tables every night. I won’t stop going there, not even for you. But I can promise you, if I am welcome in your bed, that I have no desire to seek any others.”

Scarlett turned her head to kiss his palm. She closed her eyes under his fingertips, and breathed deeply. Rhett’s scent was liquor, tobacco, horses; his hands especially were thick with the aroma of his Cuban cigars and the leather reins of his black stallion. These were smells that comforted her, that recalled safety and security in oblique childhood memories. “I want to please you,” she whispered, burying the words in his hand. 

Rhett heard her, for his arm tightened around her ribs. “Scarlett?”

She drew her hands slowly down the lapels of his coat until she felt the ridge of his waistband. Her trembling fingers fumbled at the unfamiliar fastenings of his pants. His hand joined hers, and she marveled at the contrast between them as she watched him take over. He was so much larger, so much darker than she was.

Unexpectedly, Rhett put his hands on her waist and spun her around. He was clumsy now with impatience and several of the delicate buttons that marched down the back of her bodice were disconnected from the fabric as he struggled to undo them all. His hands were surprisingly gentle as he unlaced her corset until it was loose enough for her to unhook the busk and remove it. Then his hands were gone - she turned and saw him removing his own clothing, carefully draping his jacket and waistcoat over the standing clothes rail. Breathing in her courage with a deep inhale, Scarlett shed her chemise, letting it fall to the floor with her discarded corset. She bent and slipped her garters and stockings off, casting them aside with her other garments. She was naked, her black hair hanging down her back, when Rhett turned back to her. 

He still wore his drawers, but the shape of his arousal was clearly visible, pressed against the flimsy cotton. The air in the room was warm and thick, but under his gaze, she felt her nipples tighten. She lifted her arms in a belated attempt to retrieve her modesty. She still felt ugly, unattractive. Rhett hadn’t seen her naked since long before Bonnie’s birth, and she was suddenly aware, in her exposure, of her thickened waist, the darkened nipples that were bigger, too, since the baby, the way her stomach sagged gently and the slight discolored lines that scored her hips, something that hadn’t happened with her other two pregnancies. Her body was not at all the same as it had been the last time she had been with Rhett. Draping her arms over her breasts and belly, she averted her eyes.

Rhett’s hands grasped hers and lifted her arms away. He kissed the knuckles of each hand, lowered his head to kiss her puckered nipples. He let her hands fall and smoothed his palms over her hips. He kissed her softly, almost chastely.

“You are beautiful, Scarlett,” he murmured. She wasn’t nearly convinced, but the compliment still glowed in her chest. 

Rhett pulled her close and she felt, now, the length of him hard against her thigh, the arousal she had seen when he had turned to face her. She shivered.

Rhett released her and swept the quilt off the bed, sending it over the edge to the floor and taking the remaining naughty artwork with it. He stepped out of his drawers, then lifted her easily and set her on the mattress. Scarlett scooted back into the middle of the bed as Rhett crawled in, lying on his side, facing her. He drew her close, kissing her again, and she closed her eyes and relaxed in his embrace, letting the familiar warmth of his touch wash over her and pull her under, subsuming her conscious mind under the pleasant distraction created by his insistent lips and tongue.

Newly emboldened by so many inhibitions already shed that afternoon, she let her hands wander over Rhett’s chest, a terrain she had infrequently explored. The thick black hair was curly without being coarse, turning sparse as it narrowed in a line across his tight belly, paralleled by the long knife scar from the gold fields. Her fingers traced the line of the scar back up his chest. She brushed her thumbs over his curious male nipples, flat and dark brown in color, almost hidden beneath hair. So very different from her own.

Rhett kissed her with slow, unhurried lips, and acquiesced to her gentle explorations above his waist. At length, he captured one of her hands in his, and his thumb massaged her palm until her hand was limp in his grasp. Then, with Scarlett in a blissful haze and unaware of his actions at first, he drew her hand down. She brushed something smooth and hot, uncomprehendingly, until at the gentle urging of Rhett’s fingertips her own wrapped around the unfamiliar anatomy - and then her eyes flew open and she withdrew, abruptly, from his kiss. His hand held hers in place.

They stared at each other in silence until Scarlett’s heaving breath began to ease. She tried to remind herself that she had agreed to this. She tried to remember the way Rhett had made her feel - she had barely to turn her head to see the chair in the corner, and the warmth of memory rushed through her. She closed her eyes, and closed her fingers around Rhett.

She heard his hissing intake of breath and peeked from under her lashes. His head was thrown back, and the muscles in his neck stood out in stark cords. “I  _ am  _ hurting you,” she accused.

“No,” he gritted. “Not - not at all. Scarlett,” Rhett groaned, cutting off his own words. His hand still covered hers, and he moved them up and down, covering the length of him. Her eyes grew wide as she mentally translated the sense of touch beneath her fingers - to the image on the postcard he had drawn. It couldn’t be possible.

“Rhett?” she asked in a whisper.

“Only if you want to, Scarlett,” he ground out. His voice was strained. 

Scarlett thought of the image on the card - she looked at the chair in the corner - she looked back at Rhett. His neck had relaxed and he had eased onto his back, so that now she leaned over him, resting on her side. His face was composed but his eyes were queer, gleaming with an unfamiliar light - something she could not interpret. Rhett had looked at her in many different ways over the years of their acquaintance, but this seemed an entirely new expression. She would have to think about that some other time -  _ now _ was not the time to puzzle over Rhett’s face when he - when that part of him - was hot under her palm. She could actually feel his pulse in her hand.

“Yes,” she whispered, and Rhett surged up, kissing her hard, one hand going behind her head to bring her down with him as he lay back on the pillows. His tongue toyed with hers, convincing her own to play, to explore his mouth. He sucked the tip of her tongue then released her with a teasing flick. He removed his hand from hers and cupped both sides of her head. 

“You can stop any time. Scarlett, honey, look at me,” Rhett urged, and she reopened the eyes she had let close in anxious anticipation. “You stop any time you want to, but you  _ must _ stop if I tell you to. If I pull you away, don’t fight me.”

“It does hurt!” Scarlett exclaimed, taking these instructions as proof that the observations he had refuted were in fact truth.

“No, darling, it doesn’t hurt. I promise, it won’t hurt me - or you - but you have to listen to me. Do you understand?”

“Yes,” she whispered again, and nodded. Rhett kissed her, once hard on the lips, then softly on her forehead. His hands were gentle, cupping her scalp between them, but they urged her inexorably down his body. Scarlett closed her eyes and let him guide her. When he stopped, she reluctantly opened her eyes.

She had never seen this  _ part _ of any husband before Rhett. Her marital relations, before her third marriage, had progressed in the dark, and both she and her husbands had remained in their nightclothes. Rhett had often insisted on at least some level of lamplight, and he had stripped them both naked every time. But even with Rhett, she had never been this close. It was with trepidation and fascination that she studied this part of him that was so unfamiliar to her and yet so intimately known. When she exhaled, the wash of her breath caused him to jump, and she had to stifle an inappropriate giggle. 

As she was biting her lip against her mirth, Rhett groaned somewhere above her head. His hands which had been so gentle tightened now against her head, pulling her a fraction closer before releasing her abruptly. She heard her name, almost unrecognizable in Rhett’s fractured voice. She thought of the postcard, gathered her breath and her courage, and leaning forward on her own, pressed her dry lips to the smooth tip.

The texture was softer than silk, warm, smooth. Yet she knew this wasn’t everything - the card - she closed her eyes, tracing the contours of him with her mouth until he slipped between her parted lips.

Rhett’s body shuddered as if he struggled under immense restraint as she pressed her palms to his hairy thighs and closed her lips around him. She thought of his kisses, of the movements his mouth had made on her earlier, and with sudden commitment, flicked her tongue over the tip. A bead of something wet and salty lifted away, but it wasn’t entirely unpleasant. 

One of Rhett’s hands touched her again, and his trembling fingers fluttered in her loose hair. Jerkily, as if he struggled to control his movements, he urged her head down. Bringing one hand from his thigh and wrapping her hand around him again for some stability and leverage, she easily complied, letting him slide along her tongue briefly before Rhett’s hand jerked her up again, more roughly. Concerned, she lifted her head to look up at him. His face bore the same pained expression as the man in the postcard, but he lifted his head to look at her through slitted eyes.

“Again, Scarlett - please. No, honey, it doesn’t hurt,” he said, even in his apparent distress recognizing the question in her eyes.

Scarlett complied, lowering her head again to take him in her mouth. She drew her tongue across him, let him slide along its surface again, her head bobbing in short bursts. Her hair fell over her face and tangled in the crisp, short curls that clustered between his legs. She was growing accustomed to this - the unfamiliar, but not uncomfortable, intrusion in her mouth. The satin texture was even, maybe, a little, pleasing. The sound of Rhett’s shattered breathing and the muscles of his hard thighs that trembled under her palm were incredibly rewarding. She had never felt so powerful as in this moment. She had never before felt that she could affect Rhett in any way - and now he was at her mercy. It was a heady experience.

Abruptly, his hands closed over her shoulders and he was hauling her up against his chest. One arm released her and disappeared between their bodies. He clutched her close with his other arm and buried his face in her neck, groaning her name. She felt something warm splash across her hip as Rhett’s body shook and shuddered beneath her. Realizing he must have reached his own release, she wrapped her arms around his head and held him against her throat.

“My god, Scarlett,” Rhett said at length, his face pressed into her shoulder now. She blushed again as the reality of the afternoon began to intrude, and tried to pull away. Rhett rolled over, tucking her beneath him. WIth one hand he brushed away the sweaty strands of hair that clung to her cheeks and forehead. “You have no idea,” he murmured. She turned her head away.

“No,” Rhett said, abruptly stern. He pinched her chin and forced her eyes back to his. “Didn’t I tell you that marriage could be fun? We didn’t do anything wrong, my dear.  _ You _ did not do anything wrong,” he emphasized, speaking - as he so rarely did - without mockery, and aiming right at the heart of her burgeoning moral dilemma. “It was vulgar, and thoroughly enjoyable.”

His eyes cooled. “You don’t want to take it back?”  _ What? _ her mind churned. How could they take it back? They had already done - oh, what  _ hadn’t _ they done! “No, my literal-minded wife, not the deeds. Do you want to rescind your invitation to rejoin you in our marital bed? Tell me now, Scarlett, and I’ll go away. I won’t darken your doorstep, not where I’m not wanted. Tell me if you’ve changed your mind.”

“Oh - that. N-no, Rhett. I haven’t changed my mind. But…”

“Yes, my dear?”

“We - we won’t,” she whispered, her eyes darting furtively away. “We won’t do that every time?”

Rhett roared with laughter, drawing her close and rolling over again until she was propped up on his chest. “No, my darling innocent. I rather like - and miss - our more usual activities, don’t you?” Scarlett’s cheeks flared red, to Rhett’s continued laughter. “As I told you earlier, there are things we can use for - protection, of a sort.” Scarlett nodded, and ducked her head under Rhett’s chin to hide her face.

Rhett idly ran his hands through her long hair. He brushed it back from her face, then raised his shoulder so her head lifted and he could draw out the hair trapped beneath them. He draped it across his throat and twisted the ends around his fist, then released it to float down and spread over his chest. 

Forgetting it was the middle of the afternoon; forgetting - at least momentarily - that the children would be up soon, that it likely wouldn’t be very long before the baby was hungry again; forgetting that she had still had work to do at the store, Scarlett curled around her husband and drowsed happily against his chest, relaxing as his hands stroked her hair. She had nearly fallen asleep when she heard him murmur.

“But, my dear, if it wasn’t all bad - perhaps we can still do  _ that _ again sometime.”

Hardly awake, she couldn’t muster a protest. Instead she thought, as she drifted out of consciousness,  _ No, it wasn’t  _ that _ bad. I wouldn’t mind... _


End file.
